"A very fat and jovial volunteer, dressed as a light horseman, holds ln his left hand a pole on which is the head of Napoleon in profile to the right. and wearing a huge cocked hat decorated with plumes, tricolour cockade, gold lace, and tassels. The hand that holds the pole holds also, by the hair, a bunch of bleeding heads which form a grisly garland round it. In his right hand is his sabre. He is surrounded by women; two embrace him, others hasten up; he swaggers with raised left leg, saying, "There you rouges, there! there's the Boney Part - twenty more killed them!! twenty more killed them too!! I have destroyed half the Army with this same Toledo." The women say, respectively: "Bless the Warrior that saved our Virgin charms"; "take care I'll smother him with Kisses"; "Oh! what frightful Heads how ravishing they look, - they would have used us ill I am sure"; "ha ha, thats, that great man little Boney, how glum he looks." An elderly spinster exclaims: "ah bless him he has saved us from Death and Vileation." A handsome woman turns to a tall young man in civilian dress on the extreme left, saying, "There you Poltroon look how that noble Hero's Caressed!" He turns away, saying, "Ods Niggins I wish I had been a Soldier too then the Girls would have run after me - but I never could bear the smell of Gun powder"."--British Museum online catalogue
Alternative Title:
Hero's reward
Description:
Title etched below image., Attributed to Charles Williams in the British Museum catalogue., Preceding imprint are the words "Pubd. July", which have been mostly obscured with shading., Publisher's advertisement following imprint: Folios of caracatures lent out for the evening., Sheet trimmed within plate mark on top edge., Text following title: None but the brave dsere [sic] the fair., Text within bottom part of image, above imprint: The Yeomanry Cavalry's first essay., and Watermark: Slade 1802.
Publisher:
Pubd. August 1st, 1803, by S.W. Fores, 50 Piccadilly
Subject (Name):
Napoleon I, Emperor of the French, 1769-1821
Subject (Topic):
Soldiers, British, Obesity, Daggers & swords, Heads (Anatomy), Decapitations, and Women